Album Review

Blue Stone is a collaborative project between multi-instrumentalist Bill Walters and producer/programmer Robert Smith (who also makes chillout recordings under the name Bella Sonus). Breathe is their debut as a duo, and the music they make here is pleasantly easy on the ear, with overtones of classical and worldbeat as well as the occasional whiff of a gothic influence. It's not terribly exciting music, but excitement isn't the point: what they're shooting for is "ethereal sonic bliss." The result is, at times, kind of like Enigma without the smarmy, moustache-twirling sexuality; the parallel is especially noticeable when vocalist Darcy starts whispering in her rather poorly pronounced French ("Breathe," "I Am"). Every once in a while the group's attempts at meditative depth end up just sounding depressing, as on the soggy "Only One." But for the most part this is nice stuff, the kind of electronica that will appeal to people who really aren't sure they care for electronica but are looking for something a bit hipper and more exotic than that Debussy best-of they've been listening to over and over.